Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Thursday, May 03, 2018

Mike Pence’s Hypocrisy Filled Sense of Morality

With Rudy Giuliani exposing Donald Trump as a liar - yet again - during an interview on Fox News, the bar for truthfulness and morality is almost non-existent in the Trump/Pence regime. Yet, Mike Pence, who bizarrely won't be alone in a room with a woman who is not his wife, continues to manage to put the hypocrisy and feigned morality of evangelicals and so-called conservatives on display. Perhaps one of Pence's most bizarre performances was his description of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of contempt of court, as a “tireless champion of the rule of law.” The takeaway message is that trampling on the rights of minorities - especially those who have brown or black skin - is perfectly fine in the warped moral world of evangelicals. This, of course, should surprise no one given the historical ties between evangelicals (especially Southern Baptists) and support for segregation and the Jim Crow laws. A piece in the Washington Post looks at Pence's upside down morality. Here are excerpts:

Until Tuesday, it seemed that Vice President Pence had one
primary function within the Trump administration: to be morally offended
by everything. There was the time that he walked out of an NFL game because some
players took a knee while the national anthem was played.

Last month “the vice president walked out of the Summit
of the Americas when Cuba’s foreign minister was recognized to speak after
him,” according to the Associated Press.

Pence has demonstrated his
ability to register his moral disapproval even when he does not leave an
event. This was the case at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics,
when he refused to stand as the unified Korean team entered the stadium.

Pence’s defenders would argue that being rude to dignitaries
from North Korea and Cuba just shows how righteous he really is. His brand
is as a man of serious moral values who can serve as Trump’s envoy to people of
faith. Pence’s presence in the
White House has been a boon for the religious right. Evangelical leaders across
the country point to his record on abortion and religious freedom and liken him
to a prophet restoring conservative Christianity to its rightful place at the
center of American life.

So it is worth noting what Pence, the Trump
administration’s righteous man, did in Arizona on Tuesday. . . . . Pence
praised former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of
contempt of court, as a “tireless champion of … the rule of law” during an event
in Arizona on Tuesday.

Pence said at the
tax event that he was “honored” by the former sheriff’s attendance,
and called Arpaio a “great friend of this president and tireless champion
of strong borders and the rule of law,” to cheers from the crowd.

Needless to say, most observers do not view Joe Arpaio as a real
big fan of the rule of law. Indeed, Arpaio probably would have fit right into
either the Cuban or North Korean regimes.

It is not just Arpaio’s victims who feel moral outage.
The National Review editorialized in January:
Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt last summer for willfully violating a
federal court order. Specifically, he was convicted of violating an order that
he cease arresting and detaining people for
whom there was no plausible criminal charge— i.e., the court asked
him, pretty please, to stop detaining Mexicans for publicity purposes.

But Sheriff Joe has a thing for arresting people who haven’t
committed any crime. He arrested a Republican critic — the county supervisor —
on trumped-up charges in 2008 and ended up handing over $3.5 million of
taxpayers’ money in a wrongful-arrest settlement.

Red State’s
Sarah Quinlan offers up a detailed list of Arpaio’s abuses of the
rule of law while he was the former sheriff, concluding: “Nothing about Sheriff
Joe Arpaio resembles any sort of justice or law and order under the United
States Constitution, and it is disgraceful for Pence to pretend otherwise.”

Note who I’m quoting here. These are conservative outlets
one would expect to be in lockstep with a good Christian conservative like
Pence. But they are appalled — and they are not the onlyconservatives to react this way. In these
politically polarized times, Mike Pence has managed to appall just about
everyone across the political spectrum. That takes some doing.

[T]he number of officials in the Trump administration who
can claim to have preserved their moral bearings in this administration keeps
shrinking by the day.

It is possible that the
vice president reads this and cancels his Washington Post subscription in a
fake moral outrage. It would be on brand for him. It would not change the
fact that he has sullied his standing with this act of moral appeasement.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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